How to Delete WhatsApp Messages

Need to clear out the clutter in your WhatsApp message history? If you need some extra space with which to organize your chats, you can delete individual messages, whole chats or group chats, or even your entire message history!

Remember that deleted WhatsApp messages will only be gone from your phone. They will still be on the phones of the people who sent or received them, so think carefully before you send!

To delete WhatsApp messages:

If you enter a WhatsApp chat, you can select and delete individual messages within that chat, or delete all messages within that chat at once. In addition, if you visit your "Chat History" menu, you can delete all messages in all of your active chats, or delete all of your active chats outright (messages included).

Want to see how that's all done in practice? Of course you do! Below are screenshot-guided instructions for how to delete WhatsApp messages.

Detailed instructions on how to delete messages from WhatsApp

Turn on your mobile phone and tap WhatsApp to open it.

How to delete individual messages

Tap the Chats category, and tap the conversation that you wish to delete messages from.

Press and hold on the message(s) that you wish to delete. They will be highlighted with a blue hue when they are selected. Then, tap the trash can icon.

You can also delete all messages within a particular conversation -- without deleting the conversation itself -- by tapping the "More Options" menu (the three white dots) in the top-right corner, and then tapping More in the menu that pops up.

A new menu should pop up, where you should tap Clear Chat.

How to delete chats or group chats

From the main WhatsApp menu, tap the Chats category, and then press and hold on the conversation that you wish to delete. Then tap Delete Chat in the menu that pops up.

(NOTE: You cannot delete a group chat unless you have already left that group. See our WhatsApp Groups tutorial to learn how to do that.)

How to delete your entire message history

From the main WhatsApp menu, tap the "More Options" menu (the three white dots) and tap Settings in the menu that appears.

In your "Settings" menu, tap Chats and Calls.

Under "Chat Settings", tap Chat History.

Here, you will have two options for getting rid of your entire message history.

If you tap Clear All Chats, WhatsApp will delete all messages within all of your active conversations, but will leave those conversations active.

If you tap Delete All Chats instead, WhatsApp will delete all of your active conversations and all messages within them. (Note that, again, this will not delete group chats unless you are no longer a part of the group.)

That's a quick primer on how to delete WhatsApp messages that you no longer need!